Maund, R v

An indeterminate public-protection sentence requires an individual and reasoned assessment that the offender presents a significant risk of serious harm from further specified offences. The gravity of a joint enterprise, and the collective conduct of its participants, cannot alone justify that finding.

Even where dangerousness is established, indeterminate detention does not automatically follow. The sentencing court must consider whether an extended or lengthy determinate sentence will sufficiently protect the public, having regard to the offender’s personal circumstances and the likely effect of a long custodial term.

The appellant pleaded guilty during trial in the Crown Court at Worcester to conspiracy to rob, concerning three planned home robberies involving restraint, violence or threats of violence. He was 20 when sentenced in December 2011 to imprisonment for public protection with an eight-year minimum term.

Following a reference by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, he challenged the indeterminate sentence. The principal issue was whether he satisfied the dangerousness requirement in section 225(1)(b) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, and, if so, whether detention for public protection was necessary.

1. Appeal allowed. The court quashed the sentence of imprisonment for public protection and substituted detention in a young offender institution for 16 years, with credit for remand time.

2. The sentencing judge erred by treating the seriousness of the robberies and the conduct of the conspirators collectively as sufficient to establish this appellant’s dangerousness. The statutory assessment required close attention to his individual circumstances.

3. Those circumstances included his youth, limited and apparently subordinate role, absence of previous significant violence, and the fact that this would be his first very long custodial sentence. The pre-sentence report did not explicitly support a finding of dangerousness. The judge gave no adequate explanation for finding that the appellant nevertheless presented the required significant risk.

4. The court therefore held that the finding of dangerousness could not be justified on the available material. It also held that dangerousness would not itself have required an indeterminate sentence. A court must consider whether an extended sentence or a lengthy determinate term sufficiently protects the public. Here, a determinate sentence of the appropriate length adequately protected the public.

5. The original sentence was additionally unlawful in form because, given the appellant’s age at conviction, any public-protection sentence would have had to be detention in a young offender institution rather than imprisonment.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): Allowed the appeal against sentence on a reference by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. It quashed the indeterminate sentence and substituted a determinate 16-year term of detention in a young offender institution.
• Crown Court at Worcester: In December 2011, sentenced the appellant following his guilty plea to conspiracy to rob to imprisonment for public protection with an eight-year minimum term.